Alice Childress' Powerful Play Trouble in Mind at the Aurora

Aurora Theatre Company presents Alice Childress' humorous yet heartbreaking look at racism through the lens of the theatre. Trouble in Mind follows a cast of black and white actors attempting to mount a production of a "progressive" new play. The play-within-the-play, an anti-lynching drama set in the 1950s South, marks the first opportunity for gifted black actress Wiletta Mayer to play a leading lady on Broadway. But what compromises must she make to succeed?

Reviews & Ratings

Featured review from No name

"Trouble In Mind" was written in 1955 and resonates as if it was written today. The plot is startlingly modern and a wonderful antidote to the fantasy of a post racial America.

The play is very very witty and funny, a marvelous feat for the themes that are touched upon. This is not a one note "race" play. In particular the commentary on the world of theater is especially well done.

There was a flavor of "Mad Men" in this production leant by actors Tim Knifflin and Melissa Quine (a January Jones look alike).

A remarkable play, of its time and still pertinent, funny and horrifying, very well acted. Margo Hall in the main role gives a virtuoso performance. A violinist who plays Paganini well is by definition a virtuoso, but without heart. Margo Hall's...continued

I agree with the other high reviews so far. I was very impressed with the script, and found the acting to be strong in support of it. I was touched, and also found it to be humorous. I've seen about 4 other productions at the Aurora, all worth...continued

More than 40 years after it was written, Trouble in Mind, according to The New York Times, “still has the power to make one feel its anger and humor.” Set during the early years of the Civil Rights movement, it offers a disconcerting yet disarmingly funny look at the inequalities of American life in the 1950s, and the half-truths we tell ourselves about race relations and societal progress in America.

Trouble in Mind follows a cast of black and white actors attempting to mount a production of a “progressive” new play. The play-within-the-play, entitled Chaos in Belleville, an anti-lynching drama set in the South, written by a white writer and directed by a white director, marks the first opportunity for Wiletta Mayer, a gifted African American actress, to play a leading lady on Broadway. But what compromises must she make to succeed?

Alice Childress was the first female writer to win an Obie Award for the off-Broadway Trouble in Mind_. In a twist of irony echoing the play itself, she was offered a chance to take the play to Broadway — with the caveat that she would rewrite the ending and change the title. Childress refused, and the following year Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun_ went on to become the first Broadway play written by an African American woman.